puny thinker, the marshal does.”
Rising with his arms out from his sides, Tibbit approached the cell. “What do you intend to do with us?”
“Turn about is fair, they say. Open this door.”
The key hung from a peg. Tibbit took it down and inserted it in the lock and twisted. At the click, he hesitated. “I have an offer for you.”
Badger was as puzzled as Fargo. “What kind of offer?”
“I keep forty dollars and eighteen cents in a cigar box in the bottom drawer on the right. It’s yours if you’ll spare us.”
“You’re paying me not to kill you?” Badger snickered. “Why didn’t I think of that?” He stepped back and pointed the Colt at the marshal. “Open the door and turn around.”
“Please,” Tibbit said. “My true calling is corsets.”
“This town should pick law with backbone,” Badger said. He trained the Colt on Fargo and slowly sidled out, staying well clear of them so they couldn’t grab him. “In you go.”
“Hell,” Fargo said again.
“You don’t do it,” Badger said, “and I’ll shoot lunkhead, here, in his mildly plump ass.”
“No one ever tried to shoot me when I sold corsets,” Tibbit said.
Fargo sighed and went in and over to the bunk. He sat with his back to the wall and lowered his hand to his boot.
“Your turn,” Badger told Tibbit. The marshal nodded and glumly began to back into the cell.
“Hold it.” Badger relieved him of his revolver and the key on the ring, gave Tibbit a push, and slammed the door. “How about this?” he said with a grin. “You say your true calling is corsets? I thought mine was gold but maybe I should be an outlaw. I am damn good at this jail breaking business.”
“I need a drink,” Fargo said.
“Someone will come along soon enough, I reckon,” Badger said. He put the key and the Colt on the desk but stuck the marshal’s Remington under his belt.
“Where’s Gladys?” he asked.
Tibbit gripped the bars and leaned his forehead against them. “Who?”
“Gladys, my burro. What did you do with her? You’d better not have ate her. I eat my own when they get too old.”
“How do they taste?” Tibbit asked.
Fargo looked at them and shook his head. He raised his hand to his lap and stretched out on his back and put his arm over his eyes.
“They taste sort of like horses only different,” Badger was saying. “You want to boil the meat to soften it some.”
“Yours is at the stable,” Tibbit said. “So are your packs and tools. I put her up at the town’s expense.”
“That was kind of you. I take back what I said about your plump ass.”
Badger went to the gun rack and took down his Sharps, then moved to the front door. He peeked out, and cackled. “Awful kind, too, to clear the street like you done.” He opened the door all the way. “What happened to my bonnet, by the way?”
“I gave it to the mother of the girl it belonged to,” Tibbit said.
“That’s a shame. I like to wear it at night when I turn in.” Badger waved and closed the door and was gone.
“That went well,” Marshal Tibbit said.
Skye Fargo swore.
13
They spent the night in the cell. Shortly after seven a.m. Tibbit looked out the window and spied a wagon coming down the street and yelled loud enough to shake the walls. A farmer coming in to deliver eggs to the general store heard him, pulled up, and came in.
“Why, Marshal, what on earth are you doing locked in your own cell?”
“It’s a long story, Phillip. Just get us out. The keys are on the desk.”
Fargo didn’t waste a minute. He went straight to the boardinghouse. Helsa Chatterly was up and in the kitchen fixing breakfast.
“Look at what the cat drug in,” she said in a tone that told him she was miffed. “I kept expecting you to show and when you didn’t I figured you had gone to the saloon and found someone else to spend the night with.”
“I spent it with Tibbit,” Fargo said.
“I beg your pardon?”
Fargo told her, and while she chuckled he went up and washed and retied his bandanna. When he came down the food was on the table. The aroma made his stomach growl. He ate six flapjacks with maple syrup and washed them down with four cups of scalding black coffee. He also had a slice of cantaloupe that he salted until it tasted more of salt than cantaloupe.
Helsa watched him eat. “You sure were famished,” she stated the obvious as he pushed his plate away.
Fargo was also mad as hell at being outwitted by an old prospector who barely had half a wit to boast of, and having to spend the night listening to Tibbit whine and pace and go on and on about ladies’ corsets. He didn’t tell her that.
“I’ll be gone most of the day.”
“You’re off after the Ghoul again?”
“And the old prospector,” Fargo said.
“What do you make of him? It was a shock, him showing up with Myrtle’s bonnet.”
“He knows who took the women and where the man is lying low,” Fargo said, “and he’s going to tell me.”
“You won’t hurt him, will you? He didn’t harm you or Marshal Tibbit.”
“That will be up to him.” Fargo rose and walked around the table and she stood in his way and placed her hands on his shoulders.
“Be careful out in those wilds. It’s not just the Ghoul you have to watch out for.”
Fargo knew that better than anyone.
“If you make it back tonight I’ll treat you to a special meal. Don’t worry about the time.” Helsa paused. “I’m sorry I didn’t come looking for you last night. I assumed, and I shouldn’t have.”
“You’re the only woman in this town I care to bed.”
“Thank you for the compliment,” Helsa said. “At least, I think it was one. Or maybe I need to reexamine my morals.”
“Oh, hell.” Fargo kissed her and left. He went out the front door. The Ovaro was at the hitch rail. He was halfway to the gate when the drum of boots warned him. He whirled, and they were on him—Harvey and Dugan and McNee. Their faces were bruised and swollen and grim with purpose. They hadn’t brought the ax handles this time; they came at him with their fists, all three of them in a rush. He barely got his arms up and they were on him, slamming into him and bearing him to the ground.
Fargo smiled grimly. When he was mad he liked to hit things, and he had plenty to hit. He punched Harvey in the face as he went down and smashed a fist into McNee’s cheek and planted his boot in Dugan’s gut. He absorbed blows without hardly feeling them. He kicked McNee in the leg and McNee yelped and staggered. That left Harvey to try and hold him down alone and Harvey wasn’t strong enough. With a heave Fargo gained his feet, raised his fists, and waded in.
“Get him!” Harvey hollered.
Dugan tried. Fargo blocked a left and countered with an uppercut. McNee had regained his balance and walked into a cross that sent him staggering again. Harvey hissed like a snake and flailed his fists in a windmill of rage. Fargo punched him in the mouth, pivoted, and drove his fist into Harvey’s wind cage. Dugan clipped him on the chin but not hard enough to jolt him and Fargo returned the favor with a lightning jab. He traded blows with the other two and then Dugan leaped back again and it was all three of them. Fargo reveled in the violence.
